Mount Sodom (, ''Har Sedom'') is a hill along the southwestern part of the

Dead Sea The Dead Sea (; or ; ), also known by #Names, other names, is a landlocked salt lake bordered by Jordan to the east, the Israeli-occupied West Bank to the west and Israel to the southwest. It lies in the endorheic basin of the Jordan Rift Valle ...

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

; it is part of the

Judaean Desert The Judaean Desert or Judean Desert (, ) is a desert in the West Bank and Israel that stretches east of the ridge of the Judaean Mountains and in their rain shadow, so east of Jerusalem, and descends to the Dead Sea. Under the name El-Bariyah, ...

Nature Reserve. It takes its name from the biblical city of Sodom, whose destruction is the subject of a narrative in the Bible.

History

Mount Sodom began its rise hundreds of thousands of years ago and continues to grow taller at a rate of a year. Movements of the

Great Rift Valley The Great Rift Valley () is a series of contiguous geographic depressions, approximately 6,000 or in total length, the definition varying between sources, that runs from the southern Turkish Hatay Province in Asia, through the Red Sea, to Moz ...

system, along with the pressure generated by the slow accumulation of earth and rock, pressed down on the layers of salt, creating Mount Sodom. It is about 80% salt, high, capped by a layer of limestone, clay and conglomerate that was dragged along as it was squeezed up from the valley floor. It is approximately long, wide, and above the Dead Sea water level, yet below world mean

sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an mean, average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal Body of water, bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical ...

. Because of weathering, some portions have separated. One of these pillars is known as "

Lot's wife In the Bible, Lot's wife is a figure first mentioned in Genesis 19. The Book of Genesis describes how she became a pillar of salt after she looked back at Sodom during its destruction by God. She is not named in the Bible, but is called Ado or ...

", in reference to the Biblical account of the destruction of

Sodom and Gomorrah In the Abrahamic religions, Sodom and Gomorrah () were two cities destroyed by God for their wickedness. Sodom and Gomorrah are repeatedly invoked throughout the Hebrew Bible, Deuterocanonical texts, and the New Testament as symbols of sin, di ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sodom Hebrew Bible mountains Hills of Israel Dead Sea Sodom and Gomorrah Judaean Desert

History

See also

References